1. Technical field
The present invention relates generally to speaker sets for portable electronic devices, and more particularly to a speaker set which gives a portable electronic device incorporating a speaker set of compact size and good sound quality.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, CD players, MP3 players, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the like, have decreased both in size and weight over the past few years and are becoming ever more popular with travelers. This demand for smaller size with ever-increasing capability has required tremendous efforts to continually shrink many of the components contained within the device.
In another aspect, portable electronic devices being designed today require multi-media features and provide the user with the same enjoyable experience as that experienced with conventional high quality desktop systems. Thus, the sounds emanating from a portable electronic device should provide as full a harmonic content as the original sounds. The production of high frequency sounds requires a large acoustic chamber for the movement of a large mass of air. As the device is reduced in size, the size of the acoustic chamber of the speaker set and the maximum power the speaker can handle are also accordingly reduced, resulting in both a reduction in loudness as well as a poorer overall quality of sound.
For example, as shown in FIG. 4, a speaker set 100 for portable electronic devices includes a housing 10 and a speaker 19 incorporated in the housing 10. The housing 10 has a top surface 11, a sidewall 13 extending upwards from the top surface 11, and a cavity 15 defined between the top surface 11 and the sidewall 13. A plurality of sound propagation holes 110 is defined in the top surface 11, and communicates with the cavity 15. The speaker 19 has a sound emanating surface 191. The speaker 19 is received in the cavity 15, with the sound emanating surface 191 thereof facing towards the top surface 11. An acoustic chamber is thus formed by the sound emanating surface 191 of the speaker 19 and the housing 10. Since the sound emanating surface 191 of the speaker 19 is disposed close to the top surface 11 of the housing 10, the acoustic chamber is small.
However, increasing the device size to increase the size of the acoustic chamber for the speaker set is very undesirable since it would strongly detract from the very characteristics that have helped to make these devices popular, namely size and weight. Thus the size of the device is at odds with high capability sounds of the speaker.
Therefore, there is room for improvement with the art.